


All We Are

by galactic-pirates (stillsearching47)



Category: Stargate SG-1, Stargate Universe
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 10:21:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8441995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillsearching47/pseuds/galactic-pirates
Summary: When Samantha Carter goes to California for a conference the last thing she expected was Nicholas Rush. Almost four years later they face a choice, does their future lie together or apart?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RipperBlackstaff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RipperBlackstaff/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for how weak the argument was, I personally never argue and so I find it really difficult to write arguments, I don't really know how they go. Happy Belated Birthday Ripper! I hope this is what you wanted :)

The one problem with being a soldier, as well as a scientist, was trying to essentially juggle two full work loads. Going off world for days at a time made it even harder but somehow Samantha Carter managed it. By far the most difficult thing was scheduling time away from the base to go to conferences. While she could read journals to keep abreast of developments, that wasn’t the same as actually discussing those developments with the most brilliant minds in her field.

Since the Stargate program had been launched, four years ago, she had attended a grand total of zero conferences. This was the first conference she had managed to get to, which made it even sweeter that there was an added benefit. It was being held in California which meant she could visit her brother and his family.

Carter looked around the function room at the hotel. She was wearing a dress, holding a drink and feeling completely out of her element. The actual lectures would begin tomorrow. Tonight there was drinks and mingling, something she wasn’t comfortable with and didn’t enjoy.

“No, no, no!” a Scottish voice broke through the rumblings of various conversations. “You are basing your entire theory on an assumption, something I would expect from a high school student, not someone who claims to have a doctorate in their field.”

“There’s no proof I’m wrong,” the other scientist countered sulkily. He sniffed. “At least I’ve published this quarter.”

“Well then if I run out of toilet paper I’ll know what to use,” the Scottish scientist said sarcastically.

Carter snorted, and hid her laughter behind her palm. The insulted scientist left in a huff and she strolled over, taking his place and getting her first good look at the man behind the sarcasm. He was a few inches shorter than her, especially in heels but he had a presence that couldn’t be ignored. His hair was brushing the back of his collar and he didn’t look like he’d shaved in a week, the very opposite of the military look she saw on a daily basis.

“So what theory were you rubbishing so firmly?” Carter asked. She held out her hand. “Doctor Samantha Carter.”

“Doctor Nicholas Rush,” Rush said, shaking her hand firmly. “That was Doctor Andrew Covel and he has this ludicrous theory on wormhole physics. The whole premise rests on wormholes being bidirectional, there is no proof of that and his equations are full of errors, really shoddy work. I can’t believe it got published.”

“Ah.” Carter nodded awkwardly. She knew for a fact that wormholes were one-way only but as the Stargate was classified, there was no way to prove it.

“Don’t tell me you agree with the idiot?” Rush raised a curious eyebrow. He waved over a waiter. “Scotch, neat.”

Carter shook her head. “No, I happen to agree with you but the insults were a bit much.”

Rush laughed and his whole face transformed. Before he had a brooding, intense look, but the smile was warm and Carter felt an unexpected pull of attraction. It had been a couple of months since the za’tarc incident, when she and Colonel O’Neill had agreed to ‘keep it in the room’. She’d had feelings for her commanding officer practically since day one, and those feelings showed no signs of going away anytime soon.

The regulations kept their actions professional but they didn’t change how they felt. She didn’t get away from the SGC much, so her opportunities to meet other men were limited. A faint blush hit her cheeks as she considered a variation on the old Vegas saying - ‘what happened at the conference, stayed at the conference’. It wasn’t like her, she usually wasn’t that kind of woman. However, considering she could die every time she stepped through the gate, maybe she was due some ‘no strings attached’ fun.

“I save all my best insults for my freshman class. The little buggers never bother to do the reading. Do you teach?” Rush asked.

“No, I’m a Major in the US Air Force,” Carter told him easily. She cringed, the cover story for the SGC springing to the front of her mind. “Based at Cheyenne Mountain, studying deep space radar telemetry.”

“Sounds fascinating,” Rush said, with a surprising lack of sarcasm.

Carter’s mouth twisted, thinking of what it really entailed. “It has it’s moments.” She bit her lip, she needed to change the subject before he could ask for more details. “What’s your specialism?”

Rush’s eyes lit up. “Well ...”

*****

_Six Months Later..._

Carter hummed lightly to herself as she dashed round her house, checking for the third time that everything was clean and tidy. It had been six months since the scientific conference in California, six months since she had met Nicholas Rush. When she had decided to act on her attraction, she had assumed it would just be a one-night stand - her first. She had no experience with them which is perhaps where it had gone wrong ... or right depending on perspective.

That one-night stand had lasted for every night of the conference. However, she had assumed that would be it, after all ‘what happened at the conference, stayed at the conference’. Nick had asked for her number but she hadn’t thought twice about it, assuming it was just a nod to politeness. She had thought she would never see him again.

Three days later Nick had called her. She had been off-world at the time, so it had gone to voicemail. She had called him back, and when she looked at the clock it was a surprise to learn they had been chatting for an hour. With her irregular schedule, and Nick sometimes getting completely absorbed in his work and forgetting the time, their calls were impromptu and irregular. However, they soon settled into an average of once a week.

It wasn’t just phone calls either. Nick emailed her anything he thought she might find interesting, and she found herself doing the same. A couple of months back, her father had briefly stopped by the planet, a phrase which still made her shake her head in disbelief. They had gone out to California to see her brother for a couple of days. When she hadn’t been with her family, she had spent the rest of her time with Nick, shocking herself with how natural it felt to do so, she hadn’t thought twice about it.

Then, last week Nick had called, and told her that he had been invited to guest lecture at the Air Force Academy. She wasn’t scheduled to go off-world for the few days he would be in town, but even if she did have to leave it didn’t matter. She hadn’t hesitated in asking him to stay. Suddenly, there was a brusque knock at the door. Carter’s eyes flickered to the clock and she smiled, he was a little early. She opened the door and saw Nick standing there, dressed in his typical jeans and shirt combination, a duffel bag slung over his back.

“Hey,” Rush greeted, stepping forward and kissing her lightly.

Carter moved back, to let him inside. The moment the door closed, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a deeper kiss. His lips pressed against hers, a gentle but firm pressure. She heard his bag slip and thud to the ground and she shuffled back, letting him press her against the nearest wall. It had been two months since they’d seen each other in person, and now two minutes felt like it would be too long.

She nipped his bottom lip and he growled, his chest rumbling as he slipped his tongue inside her mouth. She slid her tongue against his, battling for dominance until she could press into his mouth, mapping out all the parts that brought him pleasure.

With a groan Rush tore his mouth from hers, and started to kiss down her neck, his breath hot against her skin. His hands roamed down her sides, his right moving to cup her arse as his left brought her leg up wrap around him. She could feel Nick’s arousal firm against her and she wondered if this was going to turn into hallway sex, or if they would manage to stumble the few feet that separated them from the bedroom, when his stomach gurgled loudly.

He pulled back wincing. “I should have eaten on the plane,” he said apologetically.

Carter laughed softly. “I did get food for dinner.”

She pushed against his chest and regretfully Rush took a step back, allowing her past him. She walked down the hall to the kitchen at the end and opened the fridge, pulling out the chicken and vegetables she’d planned on making.

“Pasta ok?”

“Absolutely.” Rush smiled, he rubbed his hair sheepishly and then started to roll up his sleeves. “Let me help.”

*****

_Three Years Later..._

Rush was staring at his blackboard, not an altogether unusual occurrence. The black surface was liberally covered with scrawled equations, the white chalk got everywhere but it was worth it to see the equation as a whole. Writing in notebooks didn’t let him get the big picture view of really big problems.

For a long time he’d considered painting a wall in his apartment with blackboard paint, but he’d never got round to it. He had a blackboard covering one wall of his office, so he just spent more time there, which had resulted in him practically living out of his office. When Sam had called him and asked him when he’d last gone home, and he’d realized it had been five days, he had practically heard her eyes roll.

On her last visit she had dragged him down to home depot and they had got the necessary supplies. It had taken a day’s work, and his apartment had smelled of the strong paint for a week, but he could now comfortably work from home. Truthfully right now he was staring far more at the woman in front of the blackboard, rather than the blackboard itself.

Her bright blue eyes were flickering over the equations, and he knew her brilliant mind was ticking over the problem and his proposed solution. Her intelligence was just one of the things he really loved about her. Rush lightly shook his head - love, they had been together for three and a half years and those words had never passed either of their lips.

With the long distance aspect, sometimes it felt more like friends with benefits than a relationship. His life was at Berkley University, in California, hers was in Colorado Springs at Cheyenne Mountain doing whatever it was she did - which was decidedly _not_ deep space radar telemetry. Rush respected her far too much to ever ask but he knew that she was keeping a lot of secrets. He rather suspected that was what was keeping them apart.

All Sam had to do was say she loved him, and he would quit his job and move to Colorado. He didn’t enjoy lecturing particularly. He could scratch out a living as an online tutor, or a consultant, or maybe even the Air Force would have a use for him. It would give more time for his research but he needed to know first, that it wasn’t one-sided. He didn’t want her to spill any professional secrets obviously, but he needed some sign that she trusted him before he trusted her with his battered heart.

Carter chewed on her lip thoughtfully and then tapped decisively on one part of the equation. “This is wrong.”

Rush frowned. “How?”

“You’ve dropped a condition. See?” Carter pointed at a fraction on the line above and then traced it along with her finger.

“No, it’s here,” Rush argued, his finger jabbing at another part. “See the equivalency.”

“But that would then render all of this section obsolete.” Carter gestured. “You know you always do this.”

“Do what?” Rush asked, his tone acquiring an edge.

“Strive for efficiency too early. You combine the conditions before you have finished the individual calculations.” Carter grabbed the board rubber. “It would be a lot better if you ...”

“Don’t erase it!” Rush barked. “I haven’t copied it out yet.”

“But it’s wrong,” Carter repeated.

“You’re not always right,” Rush growled exasperatedly, feeling his anger grow. “I’ve spent days working on this, and then you swoop in and think you have all the answers.”

“Well perhaps if you would listen ...”

“Perhaps if you wouldn’t make assumptions about things you know nothing about!” Rush yelled.

“I know nothing?” Carter exclaimed, her eyes flashing. “Look unless your goal is to blow up a sun ...”

“Don’t be so ridiculous,” Rush scoffed loudly, feeling his anger start to fade as fast as it had erupted. He really didn’t want to fight with her, not about this, not when she might be right and he just didn’t want to see it.

She really was beautiful when she was angry. Her cheeks were flushed and her jaw set. Her eyebrow raised challengingly. Rush stepped forward and put his arm round her, pulling her close. His mouth crashed down upon hers, swallowing her objection. After a moment he felt her relax and her mouth curled into a smile.

"You are such a bastard," Carter said fondly.

Rush hummed in agreement and kissed her again. His tongue flicked out to lick along her lips, and she opened her mouth, sliding her tongue against his as the kiss deepened. He felt her hands wind into his hair and then her teeth sunk into his bottom lip. Rush growled, so that was how she wanted to play it? He pushed forward, forcing her to back up, to the desk that was at the side of the room.

When her lower back softly hid the edge of the desk, Rush moved his hands down to cup her arse. Sam took the hint and hopped up onto the desk. She still had her hands in his hair, and she tugged him close, settling in between her legs to press firmly up against her. Rush pulled at the hem of her t-shirt, and with a playful smirk, Sam raised her arms allowing him to pull it over her head.

She wrapped her arm around his neck and tried to pull him closer for another kiss but Rush had other plans. His nimble fingers undid her bra, he tugged it clear, the straps falling loosely down her arms. Rush bent down and sucked her left breast into his mouth, tugging on the nipple roughly with his teeth, before soothing the ache with a lick of his tongue.

Sam moaned and pulled ineffectively at his shirt collar. His hands went to the button on her jeans, belatedly realizing he should have pulled these down before settling her on the desk. He undid the button and yanked her forward, she fell to her feet and in one swift move, he dragged her trousers and underwear down, baring her to his sight.

“Nick,” Carter coaxed, grabbing his hand and tugging it insistently, twisting in the direction of the bedroom.

“No,” Rush growled, backing her up against the desk again. “On the desk.”

As a general rule their lovemaking was quite gentle, more sensual than sexual. The usual exception was their first explosive encounter after time apart. However now, with Sam still wonderfully flushed from their argument, and the blood singing in his veins, Rush wanted something harder and faster. His mouth watered as he imagined licking her to a frenzy, before slamming home, but it seemed he wasn’t going to get his wish. Sam smirked and turned, so her back was to him. She bent herself over the desk, swaying her arse invitingly and looking over her shoulder, her eyebrow challenging him again.

Rush’s hands instinctively went to his belt. “Oh bloody hell,” he swore in frustration as he struggled with the buckle.

Finally it came loose and he shoved his trousers and his boxers down, gravity making them pool around his ankles. He stroked his cock, a roaring in his ears, he was already achingly hard. He tugged on his cock once more, before slipping his hand between Sam’s legs. Rush’s mouth fell open, his fingers gliding easily through her folds, she was already so slick and warm. It seemed their argument had got her fired up as well.

“Nick, I thought you weren’t going to tease,” Carter groaned.

“No teasing,” Rush murmured. He took hold of his cock and lined them up, before slamming home. “Fuck!”

He set a punishing rhythm, pulling out until only the tip of his cock remained inside her, before thrusting back in, hard and fast just how he wanted it. Rush leant over her, kissing and nipping at her neck, his right arm moving round to worry at her breast. His other hand was gripping her hip, likely so hard he’d leave bruises.

“Oh, that’s good,” Carter moaned.

“Fuck,” Rush panted, feeling her start to flutter around him. He yanked her back up snug against him, his hand slipping down between her and the desk to rub her clit. Sam howled, her back arching as she came hard. “Fuck,” he swore again, thrusting twice more before he came deep inside her. He slumped over her, his legs shaking with the effort to remain standing. “Fuck.”

“You said that,” Carter teased, laughing softly. “Remind me again why we don’t argue more often?”

“We barely see each other enough to argue,” Rush suggested automatically.

He felt Sam stiffen beneath him and he grimaced, his softened cock slipping easily out of her as he regretfully stepped back. Rush stumbled, as his trousers were still around his ankles. He yanked them back up but left his belt undone. Sam turned, she was naked apart from the bra he hadn’t quite managed to remove.

Deftly she refastened it and pulled her own trousers back on, the skin-tight jeans hugging her form. Rush winced, that wasn’t the usual post-sex behavior, she stole his shirt normally and walked around in her underwear. However, this conversation was one that felt like it required pants. The comment had just slipped out, but he supposed after three and a half years, they were overdue a conversation about where this was going.

“What are you saying?” Carter asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence which had descended.

Rush rubbed at his scruff, she hadn’t put her shirt back on and his marks were all over her. He sighed, the post-sex euphoria disappearing like a popped balloon and he just felt sad. He didn’t want to lose her but this could only go one of two ways, they couldn’t keep on like this. He just wished her tone wasn’t quite so neutral. Usually Sam was easy to read, she was a terrible liar and got flustered easily when it came to anything other than work, but she wasn’t giving him any clues as to how she felt this time.

“I need to know how you feel,” Rush admitted, after a moment of careful consideration. “It’s been three and a half years Sam.”

Carter laughed hollowly. “So this is the ‘where are we going’ talk? I’d hoped we’d avoided that.”

“Tell me what you want?” Rush asked insistently. He ran his hand through his hair. “The choice is simple, do you want more than this or do you want to walk away?”

*****

Carter bit her lip, and folded her arms in front of her. Goosebumps broke out over her skin, and she felt exposed. She looked around for her shirt, finding it halfway across the room where Nick had tossed it in his haste. Casually she strode over and grabbed it, slipping it on, which helped a little but she still felt acutely vulnerable. It wasn’t supposed to have been like this, it was supposed to have been a ‘no-strings attached’ fling. However, somewhere along the way feelings had got involved.

Nobody at work even knew she was seeing anyone. With Nick living in California, it wasn’t like she had to cancel team nights on a regular basis, and it had just never come up. Truthfully she knew that she had never mentioned it, because saying it out loud made it real. She’d told Janet of course, who gave her knowing looks after every trip to California, but thankfully didn’t say anything more than that.

What it came down to was simple, just like Nick said, did she want an actual relationship with him or not?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Choose your own ending :)

**Alternate Ending One**

Carter froze, she had no idea how to make that decision. She hadn’t expected this in her life, and she certainly hadn’t gone looking for it, but somehow Nicholas Rush had happened anyway. He was staring at her, waiting patiently for her to say something and looking increasingly resigned. Her heart ached to reassure him and her breath caught, as she suddenly realized that was the answer. If she tried to imagine a life without him in it, she felt cold, she didn’t want to imagine a future without him.

“I ...” Carter hesitated, her mouth drying. She licked her lips, wishing that this easier, that he had said something first. She looked into his eyes and saw a spark of hope, he was stock still and barely breathing, maybe he wanted this too. “I love you.”

A slow smile crossed Nick’s face, and the knot in her stomach faded away. “Oh sweetheart,” Rush murmured. “I love you too, I just didn’t know how you felt.”

He moved forward and wrapped his arms round her. She held him tight and felt the panic start to rise as reality set in. Nick had never asked her about her work, though she wasn’t so naive enough as to think he believed the cover story she had told him. Just from her injuries alone, he would have to be suspicious but he had respected her silence.

Thinking about it, she thought that might be part of the reason why it was so easy to love him. With Nick she didn’t feel like she had to pretend to be somebody she wasn’t. She could be a soldier, and a scientist without worrying about his ego. However, she still couldn’t tell him anything about the stargate program without authorization. Her expression turned speculative, he was a gifted scientist in his own right and could possibly make for a good recruit.

Rush pulled back, his hands settling on her waist as he smiled softly at her. “I have to see out the semester of course but after that ...” He gave her a teasing grin before his expression turned more serious. “I know your work is classified, and decidedly not deep space radar telemetry ...”

Carter’s stomach clenched and she closed her eyes. It felt like her previous thoughts had flown from her brain, to his, and she mentally slapped herself for tempting fate.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Rush continued. Carter opened her eyes, and saw his reassuring expression. “I’ll never ask and I’ll sign anything I need to so that we can live together.” He shifted uneasily. “That is, if that’s what you want?”

“Yes ... I mean I do want that,” Carter told him quickly. She leant forward and captured his lips, kissing him softly, before moving sharply back as a thought hit her like a thunderbolt, she grimaced. “You’ll have to meet the team.”

“Jack, Daniel and ... T?” Rush checked, his brow furrowing at the last name.

She winced again, she had known she would forget if she called Teal’c ‘Murray’ which was the name he sometimes went by while out and about planet-side. However, Teal’c as a name was sufficiently strange, that they weren’t supposed to use it on Earth. This was difficult, and she hoped fervently that Nick would get accepted to the program, otherwise almost everything about their life together would be a lie.

Although, introducing Nick to the rest of SG1 was a problem in and of itself. The fact that they had been together for so long and she’d never mentioned it, wouldn’t go down well with either the team or Nick. She could just picture Teal’c raised eyebrow, Daniel’s polite but loaded sentences and then the Colonel’s sarcastic comments. However, given she had managed to explain away her grief over Daniel’s death, and then his apparent resurrection, she supposed she could manage to explain away anything else that proved strange.

Carter’s hands moved to toy with the buttons of Nick’s shirt, popping them open one by one. “Come to bed?”

Rush growled. “My pleasure.”

*****

_Several Months Later..._

Carter stretched, enjoying the crack her back made after several hours of inactivity at her desk. Defeating an alien armada, by finding an advanced alien defense system, was a great story but it made for a lot of paperwork. She had been filling out reports for hours and had rather lost track of time. She looked at the clock and blinked, it was even later than she had thought it was. For a moment she was surprised that Nick hadn’t come to find her, and then her mouth twisted in amusement, she wasn’t that surprised at all.

She turned off the lights in her lab and wound her way through the corridors, to the lab that Nick had been recently assigned. Stargate Command had always had a few scientists on staff, such as Dr. Lee. However, with the recent discovery of Atlantis, and the expansion of the X-304 program, the IOA was on quite the power grab. The SGC was the one remaining organization mostly free of IOA influence, so the powers that be were keen to beef up the science division independent of Area 51. As she had thought, Nick had been a good recruit.

The fact that they’d recently got engaged had possibly helped with his application. Carter smiled softly to herself, she didn’t want the dream of the wedding and the white picket fence, and Nick knew that. She had actually been the one to ask him, they had been at home and she had just felt like it. Her spur of the moment proposal had been quite the aphrodisiac, until her brain had clicked in and she had ruined it.

Bringing up her father was quite the mood-killer. Carter frowned worriedly, she hadn’t spoken with him in months due to the rift that had formed between Earth and the Tok’ra. While she didn’t need his blessing, he was her father and she couldn’t imagine getting married without him meeting her husband-to-be at least once. She smiled, at least the team liked Nick, though their initial reactions had been about she had expected.

“Hey,” Carter greeted, as she entered Nick’s lab.

“Hey,” Rush replied, his attention almost completely on the whiteboard full of equations in front of him.

“Time to go home,” Carter told him, her eyes tracking over the board.

Nick had taken the revelation of the Stargate extremely well. He’d had a million questions but then he was a scientist, and his approach was much likes hers, very analytical and organized. He had endeared himself to Daniel by being fascinated by the Ancients and she felt a pang, wondering if maybe he would have liked to have joined the Atlantis expedition. She knew that he had been offered a position and had turned it down, saying he wouldn’t risk a one-way trip.

Although truthfully she wouldn’t have accepted the assignment either, not unless they could have gone together, not now she’d finally admitted how she felt about him. Janet had been unbearably smug when she’d told her, saying that she’d been waiting years for her to admit it. Carter felt a familiar pang for her lost friend. It was so unfair, SG1 had risked their lives and literally died for years but were still going, Janet went off-world once and was now gone forever.

“You know ...” Carter took the pen from Nick’s fingers, focusing on the math to distract herself. She added a line to the top left equation. “Have you tried this?”

*****

**Alternate Ending Two**

Carter froze, she had no idea how to make that decision. She felt a surge of anger at being forced into conversation now, especially because it was a conversation she didn’t want to have. She liked what they had, and she didn’t want things to change. It had grown comfortable and familiar and it wasn’t demanding. She had her independence, her career and her team, and then Nick was there when she wanted him.

Her anger fled as guilt replaced it. That wasn’t fair on Nick, he deserved far better than to be used and then tossed aside when it wasn’t convenient. He wasn’t saying he wanted to break up, so it was clear that he wanted more, and the simple truth was she didn’t. She wasn’t ready for more, she liked her life how it was, and she wasn’t prepared to change it.

She needed to stop leading him on. Carter shifted uncomfortably, still damp between her legs. She snorted, she was about to break up with him with his cum still inside her. How had she got here? It wasn’t supposed to have been like this.

“I ...” Carter hesitated, her mouth drying. She licked her lips and then shook her sadly. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry Nick.”

“So this is it? We’re over?” Rush checked hoarsely, his expression resigned.

“You want more and I don’t,” Carter admitted. “I don’t think it would be fair to continue, do you?”

“No,” Rush breathed and she moved over, feeling his arms curl around her for the last time. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too,” Carter murmured truthfully.

This might be the right decision but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t mourn the end of the relationship for a while. Besides, she doubted this would be the last time they would see each other. Nick was a good candidate for the Stargate program and was sure to be recruited eventually. Although, probably not for a couple of years unless she made a personal recommendation.

However, with or without her, Nicholas Rush would walk through the Stargate one day, she was certain of that.

*****

_Five and a Half Years Later..._

“Colonel Carter,” Rush greeted neutrally, only the slight tug at the corners of his mouth betraying that they had once known each other personally.

“Nick,” Carter greeted warmly, giving him a quick hug much to his surprise.

He had thought that she would have wanted to stay professional in front of her crew. Although, then again she was _The_ Colonel Carter and really didn’t have anything left to prove. When he had been read into the Stargate program, he had been stunned to hear the tales of her exploits with SG1. He’d also been proud and slightly wistful for what might have been. Even all these years later he still thought of their time together fondly. From the slight sparkle in her eyes, he hoped that she harbored similar warm feelings regarding their mutual memories.

“I heard the video game paid off, and you got the solution. It’s not a long trip to Icarus, need some help working it into an algorithm?” Carter asked.

From anyone else, Rush would have bristled defensively, and refused rudely. However, he knew her and knew how she had meant the offer. He felt a faint pang of nostalgia for the hours that they had spent working together, but he truthfully didn’t need any help and he felt awkward to accept knowing that.

“It’s pretty much finished already,” Rush told her. He glanced around at her crew busily working around them. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.” Carter smiled, her expression turned hesitant. “I’m actually seeing someone.”

Rush blinked. “It’s obviously serious. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Carter accepted. He looked at her questioningly and she sighed. “General O’Neill.”

“Ah,” Rush breathed.

He remembered Sam talking about O’Neill when they were together, he was her old CO. From what he knew of Air Force regulations a relationship wouldn’t have been permitted. Uneasily he wondered when they had first developed feelings for one another, and if the breakup between him and Sam, hadn’t been what he’d thought. It didn’t matter now, it was a long time ago and they’d all moved on.

“I wish you every happiness,” Rush said sincerely.

“Nick!”

Rush turned and saw Doctor Belle French standing in the bulkhead doorway, glaring impatiently at him. Carter turned as well and saw her, before raising her eyebrow at him for Belle’s form of address. He knew, that Sam knew better than most, how few people called him Nick.

“I’ll be right there,” Rush promised. “I’m just catching up with an old friend.” He turned to Sam. “Take care of yourself?”

“I will. You take care of yourself, naquadria is highly unstable,” Carter warned.

Rush laughed and started to walk away. “Don’t worry, that’s what the algorithm is for. Everything will be fine.”


End file.
